Nevada: Still the Land of Make-Believe

With apologies to the Walt Disney Corporation, Nevada has always been America’s “Land of Make-Believe.” After all, the state’s economy depends on making ordinarily sane Americans think they can show up with $500 in their pocket and leave with a cool million. But after yesterday’s Republican Presidential Caucus, it seems seems as if the state (and national) party sprinkled fairy dust on the nation’s journalists. Why? Because they’re all pretending as if yesterday’s vote is actually significant.

The Real FairyTale Land in NJ

Ssshhh. Don’t wake the sleeping beauties in Las Vegas, but what they’re full of is usually found in a septic tank. But if you’re not afraid of being turned into a toad, here are three things to keep in mind before following the national media in their hallucination…

Point One: It looks as if only 35,000 or so people bothered to vote in the caucus. That’s roughly 1.5% of the state’s population. You could also, for comparison’s sake, note that this is about the same number of people as live in my hometown of Manahawkin. To pretend that Mitt Romney won a “resounding” or “decisive” or even “big” with minscule turnout like that is being more than a bit disingenuous.

Point Two: Of course Mitt won. Everyone expected him to win the state easily, given the inherent advantages he enjoyed. He won in 2008, one of the few states he did win that year. Then there’s the large number of Mormons that inhabit Nevada (I know, it seems incongruous that Sin City and the LDS co-habitate), giving Mitt a natural organizing advantage. It’s hardly surprising that Mitt won the percentage of the vote he did. It might be more surprising if he doesn’t capture 50% of the final tally. (Point 2A – people in Nevada might be able to count cards, but they have hard time counting votes. As of 2pm today, only 71% of the votes were counted.)

Point Three: Ron Paul seems equally caught up in the fairy tale being spun off the Vegas strip. The only candidate other than Romney to actively compete for Nevada, Paul’s third-place finish and fewer than 5,000 votes wouldn’t seem to be something anyone could put a positive spin on. But there was Paul this morning on ABC’s “This Week” program, doing his best to pretend his campaign is actually viable. The reality is that at best he’ll garner 4 of Nevada’s delegates, which would run his total to 8. If he wants to pretend having a campaign that rivals Rick Santorum’s for futility is viable, that’s fine. But he shouldn’t expect those of who aren’t insane to join him in his fantasies.